


Feathers

by brightly_lit



Series: Feathers [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance, Wing Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:04:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_lit/pseuds/brightly_lit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate season 5 scenario, Dean, Sam, and twenty of their closest hunter friends stopped the apocalypse by closing the gates to heaven, hell, and purgatory.  Now working with his former hunter buddies at Ellen's security company, Dean doesn't know what to make of his weird new coworker who always wears a trenchcoat and leaves behind feathers everywhere he goes.  He especially doesn't know that, cut off from the power of heaven, the constantly falling feathers mean his new friend is dying.</p><p>"Creation cried out against the injustice of a righteous man in hell.  I answered its cry."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feathers

That asshole.  Dean jumped up from the picnic table where he was having lunch with his work buddies and arrived just in time to grab the guy’s fist and prevent him from pummeling some dweeb in a trenchcoat.  He caught the guy off-guard and used this to twist his arm and thus make him stagger back a few steps.  “What’s the fuck’s wrong with you?” Dean shouted.

 

“Little shit said I’m ‘unbalanced’!” the guy--Gordon--shouted back. 

 

“What, and this was news?” Dean retorted, but he did glance back at the trenchcoat guy with an irritated frown; Gordon had six inches and thirty pounds on him at least, not to mention you only had to know him a couple of days to realize he was a loose cannon with a short fuse.  The trenchcoat dude must be new, but who went around insulting their coworkers their first week on the job?

 

“That little freak’s got something wrong with him.  Do you know he looked Jo in the eye this morning and told her her dead father had a gambling problem?  Who does that?!”

 

“Yeah, well, who punches a guy for being a little weird?  If everybody did that, I’d have to clean your clock daily.  Simmer down, man.”

 

Gordon stalked away, muttering.  Dean glanced back at the new guy, shook his head, and headed back to his picnic table.

 

“Thank you.”  The guy’s low, resonant voice stopped him in his tracks.

 

Dean hesitated.  “Don’t mention it,” he said shortly.  “And don’t piss him off again,” he added before heading back.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

That new guy sure was making a name for himself.  Dean’s work buddies were always talking about him--the outrageous things he was overheard saying to company president Ellen, his odd work habits, bizarre claims he made about his previous work experience (his resume made the rounds under the table--it included stints as “spiritual healer,” “people-watcher,” and “recon and combat in a military organization,” giving no dates or other specifics).  Everyone wondered how he’d gotten hired with a resume like that, until one of his coworkers in IT said he was so good with computers it was like a laying on of hands.  Even his name--Cas--caused a lot of amusement, especially when a secretary wandered up and asked him for his last name for the phone list and, rumor had it, it took him a full minute to remember it. 

 

Dean tried to ignore the whole thing.  He hadn’t liked having to protect him; it reminded him of lots of other people he’d had to protect once upon a time, a whole life he’d left behind the best he could.  He didn’t like hearing people call the new guy a freak, since Dean’s own brother was and had always been a grade-A weirdo--for that matter, he supposed, Dean was a freak now, himself, after everything he’d been through.  He didn’t even like hearing the guy’s name, which reminded him too much of Cassie, something else he’d tried hard to forget. 

 

Dean had to defend him twice more from Gordon, and he was getting sick of it.  He’d avoided him up to this point, but after he even had to stop Jo from attacking him and she’d socked Dean in the gut for his trouble, once he stopped groaning and was able to stand up again, he finally looked him in the eye and shouted, “Could you keep your mouth shut, guy?  Christ.”

 

“I cannot but be what I am,” Cas replied softly.

 

“Could you be what you are a little more quietly, then?” Dean suggested, rubbing surreptitiously at his stomach.  Jo had the sharpest fists.

 

Cas cocked his head, considering.  “I can try, but I doubt it will help,” he said at last.

 

Dean doubted it, too, but he only nodded and went back to his desk.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

“Why’d you punch me?” he whined when he encountered Jo alone in the breakroom.

 

“You twist my arm, you get what you deserve,” she said with her impish grin.  “Anyway, you know better than to sneak up on me.  Hunters don’t sneak up on each other.”

 

“I was shouting the whole time I was running for you!  And anyway, those days are over.”

 

Jo’s face fell.  He knew she was kind of bummed that there was no longer a call for hunters practically the second she started being one, though Dean thanked God for that every day.  To her, it still seemed cool and exciting; she never got to the part where you’re dragging your brother through the mud unconscious with his guts about to come out of him screaming for your dad, not sure if he’s alive, either.  Her dad had been a hunter; her mom, too.  Jo had had only one career track in mind since she was born, so when he and Sam and Anna and a few dozen of their closest hunter buddies had sealed up heaven, hell, and everything else; in Jo’s mind, she’d lost her future.  She seemed happy enough working here with Dean, but he still kept a close eye on her; hunters seemed to have some compulsion to find trouble, especially the hungry ones like her.  “I’m glad you stopped me,” she mumbled, to Dean’s surprise.

 

“Yeah?” he said, leaning close and putting his hand against the fridge beside her head.  He could never seem to resist trying again with Jo, even though she always made sure to make him sorry he had.

 

“Yeah.  I kinda like him, when he’s not saying shit he shouldn’t.”  She burst out with a sudden giggle.  “Do you know when Garth asked him to fix his e-mail relays, Cas asked him if that ‘happens in a computer’?”  She chortled helplessly.  “And when mom lost a document she’d been working on, he told her she should look around for wherever she might have left it!”

 

“Sounds like a real computer whiz.”

 

“I know, he’s so weird!  Do you know what he brought for lunch yesterday?”

 

“Why is everyone obsessed with this guy?” Dean groaned, turning away, feeling that pain again.  It was the pain of Sammy when they were in school when they were kids, he suddenly realized: ‘Have you seen the new kid?  He’s such a freak.  Do you know he wears the same pair of pants to school every single day?  Did you see he only brought, like, a baby carrot, an expired bag of chips, and half a hot dog for lunch today?’  Every single time, and Dean there, always trying to defend him, always somehow failing, as Sam came home with another black eye because he didn’t want to get expelled for fighting back.

 

“A head of lettuce!” she cried.

 

“Maybe he doesn’t have the money,” Dean snapped, and Jo flinched, startled.

 

“What’s your problem?  You in love with the guy?” she hissed irritably.  “Anyway, I’m sure he could afford some real food.”

 

“So he doesn’t know how to take care of himself!” he said, way more harshly than he meant to, and he saw a little bit of pain flash in Jo’s eyes before he averted his eyes from seeing it anymore.  If only Sammy wasn’t constantly on him about that: ‘You’re not gonna die by forty after all, Dean; you need to start taking care of yourself.  You can’t eat a hamburger and fries for dinner every single day anymore or you _will_ die.’  ‘Now that we’re living like normal people, you do actually have to pay your bills--you know that, right?’  ‘Could you at least pick up your underwear and towels?’  Whatever happened to their awesome bachelor pad?  Oh, right: he was living with Sam.  “He’s not the only one,” he mumbled.

 

Jo cackled, irrepressible.  “He can kill a dozen angels in a single battle but he can’t figure out how to use a washing machine,” she snickered.  Goddammit; Sam must have been talking about him again.

 

“She can hustle at video games better than the biggest gaming geek but she can’t find her way out of the basement of an apartment building,” he said, delighting in her instant outrage.  She stomped his foot; he got her in a headlock.  She kicked him in the shin and slipped out of the headlock, just then fixing to elbow him in the head, but she couldn’t reach that high, so he leaned down helpfully, then ducked at the last second.  They were happily wrestling--well, Dean was happy about it, anyway--when Ellen came into the room.

 

“No flirting during work hours,” she said impassively as Dean let Jo go in a hurry.  Jo got in one last elbow jab as she sauntered away.

 

“Thanks for looking after the new guy,” Ellen told him once Jo was gone.  After they’d sealed the gates of heaven, hell, and purgatory, Ellen started up a security business, hiring a bunch of out-of-work hunters to protect the homes of extremely wealthy, paranoid people who could afford her outrageous fees.  Ellen was unrepentant about how much she charged, pointing out there literally was no one else in the world who could protect someone from whatever might come better than a hunter, and somehow, there were always people willing to fork out.  Most of the former hunters were out in the field right now, but those who’d been a little too casual about staying within the law--you know, like Dean and Jo--and had to go underground for a while worked here in the office.  Dean hated having to work at a desk--he really must have pissed off the powers that be for it to have come to this--then again, who else in the world had probably pissed off the powers that be more than him?--but at least he got to stay in one place with Sammy.  Plus, he really had a knack for sales and marketing, which was what he did there--charisma, flirtatiousness, being so damn good-looking ... it all helped.

 

He wasn’t the only one who didn’t enjoy being cooped up.  Hunters weren’t known for their people skills, but Ellen settled any argument with a shotgun and some quiet threats, and so far no one had suffered any worse workplace injury than a couple of broken bones.

 

“Why’d you hire him, anyway?  I thought you only hired hunters.”

 

“He is a hunter.  Kinda.”

 

“’Kinda’?”

 

She shrugged.  “I got a good reference for ’im.”

 

“Yeah?  Who?”

 

She only smirked.  Ellen always played it close to the vest.

 

 “It’s not a good idea to hire someone who doesn’t know how to defend himself--not here.”

 

Ellen shrugged.  “I knew I could count on you and Jo to look out for him.”

 

“Jo’s half of what I’m protecting him from!”

 

She gave her throaty chuckle.  “Oh, and keep your hands off my daughter or I’ll skin you alive.”

 

Dean flinched and stood up straight.  “Yes, ma’am.”

 

She grinned and walked away.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

Cas walked past him.  Dean ignored him.  Something fluttered down to the floor out of the corner of his eye.  He wasn’t at all surprised to see what it was: a black feather there, right beside his desk.  “That’s it,” he muttered, grabbing it and following Cas into the IT guys’ office, a depressing, tiny, windowless room the IT guys seemed unaccountably happy with.  Cas was the only one there at the moment, probably because he was the only one who arrived on time.  Dean expected him to take off his trenchcoat, but he sat down with it still on, and turned on his computer.  He looked up at Dean innocently when he came in, with those eyes that looked like the sky.

 

Dean waved the feather at him.  “Look, man, word to the wise: get a new down jacket or pillow or whatever it is that’s making you shed these all the time and trash the old one.  I find them everywhere.  Some people are allergic, and if you want to keep out of trouble, you know ....”

 

Cas stared at him with no sign of comprehension.  At last he stirred slightly and said, “I know all those words individually ... but they make no sense in that configuration.”

 

Dean made an irritated noise in the back of his throat.  “Feather,” he said sharply.  “Bad.  Make feathers go away.”  He waved it at him again.

 

Cas’s eyes descended to Dean’s fingers and he said ingenuously, “There is no feather.”

 

Dean rolled his eyes.  What kind of game was he playing?  There was playing dumb, and then there was being a dick.  Maybe that was the reason people kept wanting to beat the guy up.  With saint-like patience, Dean moved his fingers to the very end of the shaft so no one could possibly miss it.  “A feather!  About eight inches long, black, shiny!”

 

Jo happened past at that moment and peered over Dean’s shoulder.  “Hm ...,” she said, smirking wickedly, “so that’s what you call eight inches.  It’s okay, Dean; you’ve still got a great personality.”  She patted him on the shoulder.

 

He spun around, too incensed with Cas’s mindgames to be insulted.  “Would you tell him everyone can see the feather and he can’t get away with playing dumb like this?  He’s got some down jacket or pillow or something that’s shedding these things like crazy!”

 

Jo eyed Dean.  She was trying to make a joke of it, but he saw the look she gave him--like he was crazy.  “Maybe it’s a magic feather only you can see, Dean.”

 

“Stop fucking with us!  Tell him you can see it.”

 

Jo definitely looked a little worried before she said, way too nicely for her, “What kind of down jacket has an eight-inch feather in it?”

 

Dean looked down at the feather between his fingers.  He could feel the downy softness of the paler tuft at the end tickling his thumb.  “You seriously don’t see it?”

 

Another IT guy came in--Bobby’s friend Frank--and Dean turned to him.  “What am I holding in my hand?”

 

Frank peered intently at his hand for a moment.  “A surveillance device inserted just underneath your epidermal layer by the government,” he guessed.  Dean stared.  “What’s the range?” Frank went on.  “You know what?  I don’t care; get out of my office.”

 

Dean scrambled out, because Frank was nuts and always packing.  Jo tried to smile at Dean before hurrying back to her desk.  Standing there, bewildered, he happened to see the guarded, slightly troubled way Cas glanced at him, and at that moment, he knew the guy knew exactly what was up with the feather.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

So he had secrets.  Dean had way worse secrets than invisible feathers.  Dean had kept the feather--he even wore it behind his ear back at the house to see if Sam would say anything, but he must not have been able to see it, either, because he didn’t so much as smirk.  Maybe it really was a magic feather.  Maybe Cas had killed some giant feathered monster back in the day and kept its body around as a souvenir.  Dean asked Sam what had black feathers.  They sat at the kitchen table, throwing out ideas, everything they could think of, just like the old days.  Sam finally had that job as an environmental lawyer he’d always wanted, but Dean thought even he enjoyed having a chance to sit around speculating about what the monster of the week could be again.  Actually, they didn’t come up with a whole lot of possibilities.  Angels had black wings, but the wings were incorporeal, so that couldn’t be it.  Dragon, maybe?  They’d never gotten a close-enough look at one flying to be able to say for sure.  Coatl?  Whatever.  So Cas had monster bodies in his basement.  Who didn’t?

 

Dean sat down at Cas’s table in the breakroom.  Cas looked up at him in surprise, because nobody ever sat with him.  Everybody but Jo and Charlie hated the guy’s guts, which automatically made Dean like him.

 

Dean frowned at what he now realized must be Cas’s lunch, since it was the only food on his side of the table: a ham.  Not a piece of ham, or even a hunk of ham, but a whole ham, like you saw on ads for Christmas dinners and stuff, with the string woven around it.  Dean looked down at his own Sam-approved lunch: carrots, light crackers, and a lean chicken sandwich--he’d gotten the soda out of the vending machine just now.  He held out the sandwich toward him, lip curling at the thought of eating it.  “Wanna trade lunches?”

 

Cas didn’t even look at Dean’s lunch before amiably giving him his ham and taking his meal in its place.  He’d nibbled a corner of the ham already, but Dean didn’t care; he dug in.  Ham!  Best lunch since the apocalypse. 

 

“This is quite good,” Cas said of the sandwich.  “What is it called?”

 

Dean just squinted at him, thrown off.  “Uh ... what part?”

 

Cas examined it.  “Bread.  Meat.  Vegetation.  Some sort of white substance.  All together.  Did you create it yourself?”

 

Wow.  Cas made Sam look All-American boy, wholesome and well-adjusted.  “It’s a sandwich,” Dean said in disbelief.

 

“Sand witch,” Cas repeated, eying it with a small, wondering smile.  “Odd name, and such an inventive combination of foodstuffs, but most pleasing to the palate.”

 

Dean stared at him, just then becoming aware that the room had gotten uncommonly quiet and many eyes were on them. 

 

“The meat, then,” Cas went on.  “Does it really come from a witch?”

 

“It’s chicken!” Dean exclaimed in disbelief.

 

“Oh.  It’s a chicken.”  Was it his imagination, or did Cas look disappointed at the news? 

 

Dean caught a glimpse of Jo’s wide grin as she watched them shamelessly.  He grabbed his ham and soda and pushed in his chair before muttering something to Cas about realizing he’d promised to sit with Jo today and booking it over to her table.  He didn’t figure Cas would care.  He’d thought he’d be nice to the new guy, but this was all getting too weird.  Jo was laughing at him as he sat down.  To top it off, there was a nice, fat, fluffy feather sitting right on top of the ham when he went to take another bite.  Peachy.  Now _he_ wanted to beat up Cas.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

“I’m telling ya, Sam, there’s something seriously wrong with the guy.”  Sam was cooking while Dean did dishes.

 

“There’s a weird guy where I work, too.  I’m pretty sure he steals hot chocolate from the break room.”

 

“Wh--  Would you listen to what I’m saying?!  This guy, Cas, he’s never heard of a sandwich!  He doesn’t have any idea how to eat.  He eats witches!  Likes eating witches.  He’s a cannibal, Sam.”

 

“That is pretty odd.  But I sometimes wondered about Gordon, too.”

 

“And the feathers!  Where are they coming from?  There’s a drift of them in his office!”

 

“Maybe he’s got a fetish.”

 

“For what, crows?!  I think it’s time to do some investigating.”

 

“Great.  Why don’t you ask Frank?  I mean, good thing you work with hunters, right?”

 

Dean goggled at Sam.  Clearly, his mind was not really on this conversation.  “Yes, Sam, perfect.  Brilliant idea.  I’ll just sick a bunch of hunters on some weird dude and hope he comes out alive on the other end.  Frank--good choice, because he’s not paranoid enough to jump to conclusions or anything.  I meant, I wanted it to be us.  You and me, like the old days.”

 

“Oh.  Uh, okay.”

 

“How ’bout tonight?”

 

“Oh, I’ve, uh ... I’ve got a bunch of prep work I need to do for work.”

 

“Tomorrow night.”

 

“I, uh ... am meeting someone from work and we’re gonna ... you know, work.”

 

“Fine.  Thursday, then.”

 

“We’ll see.”

 

“Where’s your sense of urgency?!”

 

“Um, well, honestly, Dean, finding out why your coworker has never heard of sandwiches doesn’t sound too urgent.  Maybe he grew up in a commune or something.”

 

“They’ve still heard of sandwiches in communes!”

 

“Not the really weird ones.”

 

“Fine, I guess I’ll just have to do it myself.  I’ll go right now.”

 

“Sure.” 

 

Dean did a double-take.  Sam sounded kind of happy about the idea of getting rid of Dean for the evening.  “You got plans tonight or something?”

 

“Huh?  No.”

 

“You sure?  You weren’t planning to unleash the kraken ...?”

 

Sam had that tone of infinite patience.  “Dean ....”

 

“Fine, fine.  I’m outta here.”

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

Ellen had five levels of after-hours security in the office building.  The last one was an Indiana Jones-style boobytrap, basically a shower of silver bullets, holy water, salt--the whole nine yards.  Good thing Dean had the disarm code.  Anyway, all he needed was an address from the HR files, which he got in short order, and then he was on the way to Castiel Novak’s house--his full name, which he got as he was getting a load of that crazy resume again.  Castiel ... what was it about that name that sounded some kind of alarm in Dean’s brain?

 

Dean checked his GPS twice as he pulled up at what could only be called a crumbling shack by the river beneath some trees.  Technically, the address didn’t exist, but this was the only structure anywhere nearby.  There weren’t any lights on inside, if it even had electricity.  Dean got out of the car and made his way stealthily around the property, finding nothing but a vegetable garden and some fruit trees ... and lots of black feathers.

 

They seemed to be coming from inside the shack.  Dean crept up to what seemed to be the back door and managed to open it soundlessly.  He peered in.  He couldn’t see anything.  He carefully lifted his flashlight and swept it around the room.  No sign of life.  He slipped inside.

 

There was a light, in the form of a Japanese hanging lantern with a candle inside.  Dean lit it.  It was the only way he could get a good look around.  Worst case, Cas would come home and see that someone was here, but that could happen at any time, anyway, so there was nothing to lose, lighting it.  It might come down to a fight, but that was okay; fighting was Dean’s forte.  After all this time away from hunting, he’d almost welcome a good fight.  The lantern gave off a bright gold glow, diffused, filling every corner of the small shelter, and Dean turned to see what was to be seen.

 

Feathers, mainly.  Feathers everywhere, especially around a fuzzy zebra-print chair that looked like it belonged in the room of a teenage girl.  Dean looked around the room, then looked again, baffled: there was no bed.  No refrigerator.  No bathroom.  Nothing but the chair, a table, a dresser, a sink, and a bookcase, which was filled with mostly really old books in languages even Dean didn’t recognize, and he’d been reading spells and incantations in languages living and dead his whole life. 

 

Dean went to the large table, which had all kinds of stuff on it, and more books.  Dean picked up one of them: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Computers.  Dean snorted softly.  This explained a lot ... sort of ... except for the part where he was actually good at fixing computers.  Maybe the guy was using a spell to be able to fix stuff at work--spells from the witches he ate or whatever.

 

“Oh, hello Dean,” came a pleasant voice behind him.

 

Dean whirled around, gun out, to find Cas there, looking at him, head quirked slightly.  There hadn’t been a sound of a car or a bike, a creak of a door--nothing, just a little sound like wind in the trees or something, and here he was.  Cas glanced briefly at Dean’s gun, then smiled big and gestured to the room around him.  “Welcome to my home.”

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

Cas looked around anxiously for a moment, then cleared some books and clothing off the zebra chair and motioned Dean to it.  “Please, sit down.  Make yourself comfortable.  Would you like some ... something?  I might have it.  If I don’t, I can get it.  You like ham?  Would you like a ham?”

 

When Dean was too taken aback to respond, Cas said, “Ham it is,” walked out the back door, was gone a couple of seconds, and walked back in with a ham in hand.  “Here you are,” he said generously, handing it to Dean.  Dean stared, blinking, at the back door through which he had entered.  Dean had shined the flashlight around back there pretty good before coming inside, and was quite sure he had not seen a cache of hams anywhere.

 

“What’s the deal with the feathers?” Dean blurted out.  He was trying to set down the ham, but there was no flat surface but the table, and he didn’t want to get ham juice on all of Cas’s old books.

 

Cas looked down and away diffidently.

 

“I know you know,” Dean said threateningly.  “So you tell me now, and maybe we won’t have a problem.”

 

Cas raised blue eyes to his, full of vulnerability, pleading.  It was so raw and unexpected, Dean stepped back, bewildered.  “I don’t tell you because ... because I don’t want a problem,” he said, open and honest.

 

Dean’s eyes darted around as he tried to figure out what this meant.  He would tell Cas to just go ahead and tell him, that Dean would do the right thing with the information, but that wouldn’t be true; Dean was a hothead and he knew it.  Sam, he could tell, but not Dean.  Still, he couldn’t very well just let it lie, could he?  Something about Cas’s nonthreatening vulnerability made Dean want to come up with some way they could both leave satisfied.  “You killed something,” he guessed at last, “something feathery, and ... its body’s around here.”

 

Cas eyed him.  He said carefully at last, “I have killed many feathery things.  But no, I don’t keep the bodies.”

 

“You have a fetish,” Dean guessed then.  At Cas’s blank look, Dean continued, “A ... a crow thing, or something.”  When this didn’t appear to enlighten him at all, Dean blurted out, “You know, a weird sexual fetish of some kind.”

 

“Ah.  No, I have no sexual fetishes.”

 

“Then what is it?” Dean demanded, getting frustrated.  “All right, at least tell me why I’m the only one who can see them.”

 

No one’s stare had the intensity of Cas’s, especially not at this moment.  “That’s a mystery to me, as well,” he breathed.

 

“All right, well, what do we have in common, that the two of us are the only ones who can see them?”

 

“I can’t see them,” Cas murmured softly, then turned away.  “Would you like some diet lime cola?” he asked out of the blue.

 

“No!” Dean yelled.  “What do you mean, you can’t see them?  How do you know what they are, then?”

 

“Because they come from me.”  His back was turned, and Dean couldn’t see the expression on his face.  Dean thought this through fast, trying to come up with the implications, but there weren’t any.  What kind of creature had black, invisible feathers?  Only ....

 

His name was _Castiel_.  The part of his name he liked to leave off was the part that made him what he was.  “You’re an angel,” Dean gasped, as if it was torn out of him, staggering back, desperately reaching for weapons, but there was only one kind of weapon that worked on an angel, and it had been so long since there was an angel in the world, he never had one with him anymore.  Cas turned around to look at him impassively, compassionately.  “No!  How’d you get through the gate?  We sealed it!--”

 

Cas quirked his head.  “The gate remains sealed.  That’s why I can’t return home.”

 

“You were stuck here?!  I thought--I thought all you junkless wonders were sucked through back to heaven before it closed.  You were called back, or something.”

 

“We were called,” Cas acknowledged, “but I ... remained.”

 

“And you work with hunters!” Dean shrieked.  “You stayed to kill the rest of us!”

 

Cas said something that sounded like protest, but Dean was already out the door on the way to the Impala, cell phone in hand.  He peeled out, then called Sam first.  He got his voicemail, onto which he shrieked, “It’s an angel, Sam, an angel!” Then he called Ellen, who answered on the first ring.  Dean tried to quell his rising hysteria, looking around the car paranoidly every couple of seconds, because angels could appear anywhere--you couldn’t escape them.  “You know Cas, your new IT guy?  He’s an angel!”

 

“No shit,” said Ellen calmly.

 

“Wh--you knew about this?!”

 

“Of course.”  She sounded bored.

 

“And you hired him?!  You know why he’s here, don’t you?  He stayed to kill us!”

 

“No ... he stayed ’cos ... actually, I don’t know why he stayed, but he fought for our side.  Anna vouched for him, so I took her word for it when she said he could be trusted.  Besides,” she chuckled dryly, “I pay him almost nothing and he doesn’t know the difference.”

 

“Anna?” Dean stuttered, flummoxed.  Anna ... she was the one who had made it possible for them to seal the gate.  Souls still went to heaven, but the gate through which angels used to come and wreak havoc on human lives, take them as vessels, all that stuff like what they tried to do to him and Sam--that was a thing of the past.  “He’s a friend of Anna’s?”

 

“I guess.  Hey, how’d you find this out, anyway?” she asked with that sixth sense she had for when he or any other hunter was up to no good.  If he lied, she would know, and if he tried to tell even an innocuous truth, somehow it would all come out, about how he’d kind of broken into the office and maybe riffled through technically secret HR documents, and whatever else he’d done.  She really didn’t care what her employees got up to, unless it affected her personally.  Then there was hell to pay.

 

“What a relief.  Sorry to call.  See ya tomorrow.”  He heard her sharply repeating his name as he closed his phone.  He took a glance around the car before contemplating the news.  Another angel remained on earth--someone else who fought for their side.  A friend of Anna’s.  He wanted to talk it over with Sam when he got home, but he wasn’t there.  Dean grinned.  He’d totally had plans to unleash the kraken.  He shook his head and went to bed.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

It was summer in Nebraska, and their “office building” was out in the middle of nowhere.  Many of the employees had noted with amusement that Cas sometimes liked to take his lunch sitting alone in the middle of an adjacent fallow field, which was where Dean found him the following day.  Cas looked up at him mildly as he came near.  “Sorry, uh ... sorry about ... breaking into your digs and threatening to kill you and everything last night.  And ... sorry about the ham.”  He’d ended up flinging it at Cas as he left.  Cas had only dodged it and made no threatening move in response.

 

“It’s all right,” Cas said, and raised his loaf of italian bread to his mouth.

 

Dean frowned, seeing that this comprised Cas’s entire lunch, and hunkered down next to him.  “So, uh ... why are you eating?  I thought angels didn’t have to eat.”

 

“Since the gate is closed and I’m cut off from the power of heaven, I ... find I must eat to keep my vessel alive.”

 

Dean squinted.  Vessels.  He’d come too close to being turned into one.  The whole concept pissed him off.  “So, you just took some poor guy, and ....”

 

“He offered himself to me.”  Cas turned that intense stare on him.  “The vessel must consent, which you well know.  In fact, my vessel asked for it.  He’s quite devout.”

 

“Huh,” said Dean disbelievingly, and sat down next to him in the field.  Best to change the subject.  “So ... why did you stay?”

 

“I fought on the human side.  If I had gone back, I would probably have been destroyed.”

 

“Why?  Why did you fight for us?”

 

Cas stared off into the distance, as if he could see a thousand miles on a cloudy day.  “It was not a choice.  I was ... very close to a human once, saw everything he had ever known and believed and experienced in that split second when we touched.  It was a revelation to me.  I felt rather as if I had eaten of the tree of knowledge.  I could not go back to what I was.”  Cas met his eyes then, almost as if seeking ... forgiveness?  “It was wrong, I know.  Well, I know my superiors would say it was wrong.  But my father is truth, and that was my truth.  I had to do what I believed was good and right, and I couldn’t believe an end to humanity, to all they have built and struggled and suffered for, could be right.”

 

“Wow,” Dean said, looking down, overwhelmed.  “I guess I ... never put it into words like that, but ... yeah.  So ... Anna was human, and that’s why she felt that way, and you ... you were kind of an honorary human.”

 

Cas seemed delighted to be described thusly.  “Yes, an honorary human.  I hope so, since ....”

 

“... Since we made it so you can’t ever go back again.”  Dean had never regretted closing the gate, not once.  Until now.  “So, I’ve got a question for you,” Dean said, offering Cas his apple and some of his carrots.  He couldn’t stand to see him have to eat like that.  “Why can’t you see your own feathers?”

 

Cas cast his eyes slightly downward; Dean could see their blueness through his lashes.  “Cut off from the power of heaven, I ... can no longer make my wings manifest.  In fact, I wondered if ... if I still had wings.  It relieves me that you can see them, because it means they’re still there.”

 

“There’s feathers everywhere in your little shack, man.”

 

Cas seemed surprised.  Troubled.  “There are?  But angels don’t shed feathers.”

 

Dean looked away as they both figured why Cas was shedding feathers, cut off from the power of heaven.  Dean had pretty much screwed him every which way, hadn’t he?  The only angels he’d ever seen were Uriel and Zachariah and Michael, and they were dicks.  He hadn’t known there were good angels. 

 

“It is said that when the last feather leaves an angel’s wing, he is fallen,” Cas said softly. 

 

“Sorry,” Dean muttered, feeling about as low as ... well, as low as a human compared to an angel.

 

“You did what you believed was right,” Cas said with conviction.

 

“And you?  Do you think it was right?”

 

Cas thought a long time before answering.  “I really could not say.  I was made for obedience, not for making decisions that will affect the course of all humankind.”

 

Dean frowned.  Why’d he have to put it like that?  Dean never thought of it like that.  If he did, he wouldn’t have been able to do half the stuff he’d done in his life.  “I just stopped the apocalypse,” he said.  “That was a decision that seemed pretty cut and dried.”

 

“You did what no one believed could be done.”  He opened his mouth as if to say more, then closed it again, and handed Dean his loaf of bread.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

Dean started giving him his lunch every day.  His heart sank every time he saw another feather drifting down the hall beside his desk.  It seemed like there were more and more of them all the time.  Dean even saw Cas have to catch himself on desks and walls sometimes.  Whatever was going on with his feathers and everything, he wasn’t doing so good.

 

The least Dean could do, since it was kind of his fault, was teach the guy how to eat.  Obviously, they couldn’t do it at his shack, since there was no stove, no fridge, and no food, so Dean invited him over on another night Sam was out working late with a coworker, which he seemed to do all the time now.  Cas was an avid learner, attentive and careful, and Dean felt it like a knife in the heart every time he acted grateful for these crumbs Dean was tossing him when Dean was the one who had made all this necessary in the first place.  Dean cautioned him repeatedly that he didn’t really know that much about cooking and he should take everything he said with a grain of salt, but Cas took his every word as gospel.  He was made for obedience, he’d said.  He seemed lost without someone telling him what to do.

 

Sam came home one night while he was still there and met him.  Sam frowned instantly, staring intently at Cas.  “You seem ... familiar.”

 

“I do?”

 

“Nah, we never met him, Sam,” said Dean, but Sam wouldn’t take his eyes off him, even watching him surreptitiously from the kitchen, that psychic thing Dean preferred not to think about.  When Cas finally left for the evening, bowing formally and then simply disappearing, Dean turned unwillingly to Sam.  “All right, what is it?  You got some problem with the guy, spit it out.”

 

“I don’t have a problem, he just seems familiar.”

 

“I swear we never met him, Sam.”

 

“I believe you; he just ... reminds me of someone.”

 

“Who, Anna?  Of course, because they’re both angels.”

 

“No, not her.”  When Dean just stood there, waiting for him to spit it out, Sam finally reluctantly said, “I guess he kinda ... reminds me of you.”

 

Dean chuckled.  “We couldn’t be more different.”

 

“No, I know.  I don’t know what it is.  Not always; just ... in the last couple of years, something about you ....”

 

Dean frowned.  “Since I got back from hell?” he asked tightly.

 

Sam nodded.

 

“I know you and Bobby were worried that maybe something was different, like maybe some piece of me was left behind.  How come you never told me this before?”

 

“’Cos I never realized it before.”

 

“It’s your psychic thing, isn’t it?  Something you can see that no one else can.”

 

Sam nodded.

 

“Well?  Is it something bad?” he demanded.

 

“No, not at all; it’s just ... different.”

 

“And it reminds you of Cas.”

 

“I guess so.”

 

“Well, when you figure out what it is, tell me.”

 

Sam shrugged agreeably, and when he did, Dean saw something under his collar.  “Is that a bruise?” he asked anxiously, reaching for it, but Sam wouldn’t let him near it.

 

“It’s fine,” Sam said quickly.  “It’s nothing.”

 

“Is something going on?”  Sam tried to protest.  “If you’re in trouble, you better tell me now, Sammy.”

 

An unreadable smile quirked Sam’s lips.  “I’m not in any kind of trouble, Dean,” he said soothingly.

 

“Hm.  Well, if you ever are, you tell me, and I’m there.”

 

“I’m almost thirty.  When do you stop being the big brother?”

 

“Let’s see, uh ... NEVER.  You’re gonna tell me if something’s wrong, right, Sam?”

 

“Absolutely,” said Sam with a grin.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

 

Still, he had to be up to something, because he was almost never home.  Dean found himself driving to Cas’s shack after work more often than not, just to have someone to hang out with.  He never thought he could be comfortable in the presence of an angel, but Cas was different, like Anna.  Actually, what he liked best about Cas was that he was so easy to be around.  He didn’t judge, he didn’t yell, he didn’t get mad about anything.  Sam usually didn’t, either, but Dean knew how to push his buttons and get him going.  Cas had no buttons.  Any harassment Dean doled out was met with confusion or shame, which shamed Dean in turn, until finally he just stopped being a dick and tried to be as nice to Cas as Cas was to him, or as close as he could come, anyway. 

 

It had only been a few weeks that they’d been hanging out when Dean realized he was the best friend he’d ever had.  He was the friend Dean had so craved as a kid, when he’d come running home with news about something he’d seen or wanted to do, bursting with excitement, and his dad would snap at him about this or that and Sam only had his nose buried in a book and didn’t want to be bothered.  He caught himself running into Cas’s shack sometimes, words tripping over each other in his eagerness to share them with Cas, and Cas would only turn with a smile, most happy to see him, and listen intently to everything he said, asking him to expand on the details.

 

It made Dean feel generous.  He wanted to introduce him to all the joys of the human world, so he took him to a brothel once he learned he’d never had sex.  Well, that was a fiasco; somehow poor Cas even managed to drive away a hooker.  Instead, he took him out practically every night to Dean’s favorite burger place, and Cas liked that quite a bit, saying it even made his vessel happy.  They went out and saw movies together.  Dean had never been much for nature, but in return, Cas shared with Dean the things he enjoyed, waxing on for hours about his garden and his trees and the miracle of how they bore fruit, and Dean found he kind of liked listening to it.

 

They had lunch together every day at work.  At first people teased him about it, mainly Jo, but after a while, the other hunters seemed to get used to it, and only sometimes gave them strange looks.  It’s not like they had any room to judge.  Hunters were a weird lot, with weird hobbies and interests.  Going out for a burger with his buddy was nothing.  It was all great until one night, Dean arrived at Cas’s shack and Cas wasn’t there.  He’d bought Cas a cell phone, which he called several times, knowing Cas hadn’t quite figured out how to work it yet, and sure enough, he answered on Dean’s third try.  “I’m at your place,” Dean said.  “I didn’t know you, uh ... ever had anywhere else to be.  Where are you?”

 

“Walking,” said Cas.  He sounded out of breath.  “It’s a long way from the office.”

 

This couldn’t be good.  Cas’s “commute” involved his walking out behind the building where there were no windows and suddenly appearing in his shack.  “Why--why are you walking, Cas?” he said, getting more concerned by the second.

 

“I ... can’t seem to ... travel the way I used to.”  Now Dean heard that it wasn’t that he was out of breath, it was that he could scarcely breathe.

 

“Turn on your GPS,” Dean said in a rush.  “I’ll be right there.” 

 

He found him stumbling along a country road, trenchcoat belt dragging through the dirt, and helped him into the car.  Cas’s relief was palpable.  “Thank you, Dean,” he kept saying, over and over.  “Thank you.”

 

“Of course!” Dean barked.  “Don’t thank me for that.  You ever need me, you just call, you hear?  Jeez, you scared me.”  He glanced over at Cas to see why he wasn’t answering, and got abruptly much more concerned as he saw Cas seeming to fight for consciousness, feathers raining down into the back seat.  Angels didn’t sleep.  They certainly didn’t pass out.  “Cas?  Cas!” 

 

Dean drove him directly to his own house and helped him inside onto the couch.  He didn’t know what to do for him.  How did you heal an angel cut off from heaven?  So he just sat with him and told him he was going to be okay, even though he had no idea if he really was.  He fell asleep there on Cas’s shoulder.

 

Cas seemed a little better in the morning after a full night’s sleep.  Dean silently made him a healthy breakfast, trying to buck up for Cas’s sake, though he felt like he was falling apart.  His best friend was dying because of him.  Cas tried to pretend like he was fine, which made it worse; he smiled and said, “I may have to learn how to drive a car.”

 

“I’ll drive you to work every day,” Dean said shortly, “but you sure as hell aren’t going anywhere today.”

 

Cas looked concerned.  “Attendance is one of the most important factors in success at one’s work ....”

 

“Yeah, whatever, we’ve got to get you better.  Is there anything I can do?  Cas?”  He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice, and knew he failed.  “Is ... is it just going to get worse from here?  Man, are you dying?”

 

“I don’t know,” Cas said, crushingly frank, without self-pity.  “I don’t know what happens to an angel still on earth when the gate to heaven is closed.  It’s never happened before.”

 

“It’s my fault,” Dean said, his throat thick.

 

“You did the right thing.”

 

“You can still say that, when you might die?”

 

“I made my choice a long time ago; I’d have died either way.  I’ve no regrets.  I’m only happy ... you and I were able to become friends, while I was still ... here.”

 

Dean looked down, tears welling up, as hard as he tried to keep them in.  He felt Cas’s hand stroke his hair, and he knew he’d seen his tears.  As with everything, there was no judgment, not of Dean’s weakness, nor of his past actions, even when Cas was the victim.  He wished Cas would yell at him, rip him a new one, something.  This unending compassion turned him inside out.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

Dean cleaned the feathers out of the car while Cas slept the morning away on the couch.  He tried to use the vaccuum, but though the feathers sometimes drifted and rolled around in what appeared to be a light breeze, it wasn’t an earthly wind.  The vaccuum didn’t even touch them, so Dean had to scoop them out of the back of the car with his hands.  Cas was even more concerned to learn that Dean intended to stay home from work with him, but not only was Dean not concerned, when he called in for the both of them, he yelled at Ellen to start paying Cas fairly.  Maybe it was living in that crappy shack that had left him like this, no heat or food or anything.

 

Dean was dozing beside Cas in the dark livingroom when a car pulled up and Sam came in around lunchtime.  Dean was about to call out to him when he heard him talking and realized he wasn’t alone.  “No, my brother works way out in the boonies.  He never comes home for lunch.  We’ve got time.”  The Impala was still behind the house where he’d cleaned it out; Sam wouldn’t have been able to see it from the driveway.

 

“Why don’t you tell him about me?” said a female voice.

 

“Well ... Dean doesn’t mind if I just hook up, but since this is getting serious ... and there’s that history with Jess, you know ... I want to wait for the right time to tell him.”

 

“You shouldn’t lie to your brother,” she teased.

 

“He’s used to it,” Sam teased back.  At this point, there was a kissing interlude.  Sam had been coming home for lunch sex all this time, that sly dog.

 

“So ... do you not get along, or something ...?” she finally said.

 

“No, actually, I ... I did lie to him a lot, a couple of years ago, and ... part of why I’m waiting to tell him is because I’m afraid maybe he won’t trust me or something, won’t trust me to make the right decision, because Ruby, you know ... that was a bad decision if ever there was one.  I want to make sure all the conditions are right and he’s prepared to like you, because, if you’re going to be my wife ....”  More kissing.  Dean managed to get into the doorway and get a good view of the goings-on before clearing his throat.  He had the satisfaction of seeing Sam jump about a mile high, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling.  “Dean!”

 

“Want to introduce me to my future sister-in-law, Sam?” Dean said dryly, then took matters into his own hands.  “Hi, I’m Dean,” he said to her, and yowza, Sam really knew how to pick them.

 

She recovered better than Sam, coming over and shaking Dean’s hand.  “Dean.  I’m Virginia.  Nice to meet you.”

 

“You too,” Dean said, trying not to give in to his first impulse, which was to leer.  He then turned to Sam.  “Sammy?” he said expectantly.

 

“Dean, I--.”  It was fun to watch him squirm for a while and try to explain himself, and Dean drew out the agony, barking at him about lying to him again. 

 

When Virginia started looking uncomfortable, Dean winked at her, and a slow smile spread across her face.  She left the kitchen where they were arguing and went into the livingroom.  Dean heard her say, surprised, “Oh!  Sorry,” and he heard Cas murmur something weakly in response.  All Dean’s attention was abruptly on her and Cas, and Sam’s followed. 

 

Sam started heading curiously toward the livingroom and Dean grabbed his arm, taking him to task entirely forgotten.  “Sam, I need your help,” he said quietly.  He told him about finding Cas by the side of the road the night before.

 

Together, they got Cas up the stairs into Dean’s bed.  Cas was conscious now, if only barely, and Sam anxiously said he’d make them all some lunch.  Dean sat down next to Cas, looking down at him, agonized.  Cas looked into his eyes and smiled tiredly.  He took Dean’s hand, which was totally Cas; he didn’t get any of the rules about who you touched and how and when.  Dean only insisted he not touch Dean at all at work; the rest of the time, he put up with it.  You could only teach an eons-old angel so many new tricks.  “You’re afraid,” Cas said.

 

“I’m upset!  Cas, you--I just spent all morning cleaning piles of feathers out of my car.  Are ... are you ... fallen?  What does that even mean, anyway?  I mean, I know Anna fell by ripping out her grace, but this seems different.  She was reborn as a human, but you, you’re still ....”

 

“Yes.  Fallen is to become human.  In the past, a fallen angel in its vessel still had access to the power of heaven via the gate.  It stands to reason that, lacking the connection to the earth that provides for human survival, an angel without any connection to heaven ....”

 

“... Dies?”  The word was squeezed out of Dean unwillingly.  “You think--”

 

“It seems most likely,” Cas said plainly.  “I think ... I think my feathers falling out is a sign of ill health.  Where in the past the last feather signified an angel having fallen, I think in my case--”

 

“No.  Don’t say it.”

 

Cas knew it did not need to be said.  He sat quietly with this for a little while before continuing his painfully unflinching line of logic.  “How many feathers, would you say?”

 

“Doesn’t matter; we’ll get you fixed,” Dean said brusquely.  “You can heal, right?  If you’re back online on the heaven-wide web?”

 

“Yes, but--”

 

“Great, then I’ll get right on that.”

 

“Dean--”

 

“It just may take a while, Cas, okay?  You hang in there.  You have to hang in there.  Understand?”

 

Cas could see into your soul just looking into your eyes, and from the expression on his face, Dean could see he’d read him like a sad, terrified book.  Cas nodded, all compassion, feeling sorry for Dean for being upset that Cas was going to die, when it seemed he could not be brought to care about it for himself.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” Dean snapped.  “What the--why can’t you believe you matter?!”

 

“I could ask you the same question.”

 

“Yeah, well, we’re not talking about me, are we?  We’re talking about you.  Answer me.”

 

Cas considered a long time first.  At last, he said, “I ... think I have already done what I was created to do, when we ... when you ....”  He looked at Dean for comprehension, and Dean nodded shortly, figuring he meant when he helped them stop the apocalypse.  Dean often felt the same way about himself and Sam.  “I am only an angel, Dean, and not a good one at that.  I don’t obey anymore; I don’t follow orders.  There’s no place in the world or in heaven for such a creature.”

 

“Yes, there is,” Dean said fiercely, grabbing him by the shoulders.  Cas’s mild surprise as he looked at Dean’s hands on him made Dean realize he’d never voluntarily touched him before.  “You have a place _here_ , you got that?”  When it looked like Cas was about to protest, Dean went on, “My brother and I are a couple of freaks, too; you’ll fit right in.  I’m not hearing any of that crap, period, so don’t say it.”

 

Sam came in then with soup and sandwiches.  He looked surprised to find Dean leaning over Cas in the bed, gripping his shoulders, and Dean let him go quickly, unceremoniously grabbing a plate from Sam and handing it to Cas.  Dean didn’t realize how much he was scowling until he exchanged a look with Sam and saw Sam’s pity and concern.  Sam pretty much knew the gist of the whole conversation he’d just had with Cas with that one look.  “Cas’ll be living here with us for a while,” Dean said gruffly.

 

Sam only nodded.  “Welcome,” he said.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

After a few nights’ sleep in a good bed and some decent food, Cas was recovered enough to get around at least, though there was no way Dean was letting him go back to work yet.  Cas actually was kind of starting to seem human: sleeping all night, eating regular meals.  Dean taught him how to shave and shower.  They got him some clothes.  It was charming to see how new and exciting figuring out how to be human was to him.  It made life seem a little more exciting and interesting again to Dean, too.

 

It was great having him there.  Sam was often at Virginia’s, so it was nice to have the company, and Dean’s house was way more comfortable than the shack.  Besides, Cas was so easy to get along with, it was like all the best parts of having a roommate without any of the rest of it.  Cas was no trouble at all.  He never asked for anything for himself, so Dean put concerted effort toward figuring out his interests and providing for them.  They went and got Cas’s stuff from his shack, which he was content to leave behind, except for his garden, about which he seemed mournful, so after that, Dean took him over there a few times a week and sat around surfing the web on his laptop while Cas puttered in his garden, happy as a mother hen clucking over her chicks.

 

Dean went back to work once Cas seemed able to look after himself during the day, which sometimes yielded something awesome upon his arrival home from work, like dinner, and sometimes yielded something odd, like some strange project Cas had gotten a wild hare to pursue.  Dean wasn’t crazy about the life-sized fake plastic safari animals that suddenly appeared in the front yard.  He was even less excited about the year-round nativity scene Cas lovingly constructed with a girl baby doll as Jesus and a much-smaller Barbie as his mother Mary.  (G.I. Joe was, appropriately, Joseph.)  He kind of liked the shed Cas built in the backyard, ramshackle and useless as it might be, because it featured a cellar where they could put their guns and weapons, and he laughed his ass off at the cutesy cherub painting that he brought home one day from a garage sale, especially the expression on Sam’s face when he saw it.  Dean was going to refuse to let him keep it in the house, but when he saw him staring at it intently for like half an hour one afternoon with the most wistful look on his face, he had to relent, and let him put it up in the bedroom, which had become both of theirs.  At first Dean slept on the couch, but when it became clear Cas would be there a while, he started sleeping beside Cas in his bed, because who cared?  It was no big deal.  Cas wasn’t even human, anyway.  Sam and Virginia never said anything about it.  If he took care never to mention it to anyone else they knew, so what?  He and Sam had to share a bed in every hotel until Sam grew so huge his feet dangled over the foot of the bed.  This was just like that. 

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

They were sitting on the couch like normal, listening to Sam and Virginia flirting in the kitchen.  Cas sighed happily.  Dean looked over and saw that deep, joyous sigh came from something he was reading about ornamental flowers.  He was ridiculously cute.  Dean couldn’t help smiling at him, and just before he went back to web surfing on his laptop, Cas planted a kiss right on his lips.

 

Dean jumped off the couch.  “What the hell?!”

 

Cas started, surprised, and noted his extreme displeasure.  He looked ashamed.  “I’m sorry.  Was I not ...?”

 

“No!  No, of course not!  We’re not ... like that.”

 

Cas glanced toward the kitchen, where Sam and Virginia were just then giggling and smooching.  “But they ....”

 

“That’s different!”

 

Cas contemplated this, and plainly came up with nothing.  “How?”

 

Dean relaxed a little and sat back down.  That was just Cas being Cas.  He didn’t get any of this kind of stuff.  “Because we don’t love each other like that.”

 

“Don’t we?” Cas asked softly.

 

“No.  We’re just friends.  I don’t feel about you like Sam feels about Virginia.”

 

Cas looked deep into his eyes for a long, long moment.  At last, he said, “I think you do.”

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

Dean was upset for days.  He started sleeping on the couch again.  He wasn’t mean to Cas or anything--he wasn’t that much of a dick--but he tried to make sure none of their interactions could be miscontrued, thumping him on the back when before he might have casually put an arm around him--stuff like that.  Still, he could tell from the way Cas looked at him that it wasn’t having the intended effect--Cas looked at him now like there was something _Dean_ wasn’t getting, and somehow, he couldn’t be convinced otherwise.  Dean tried to talk to Sam about it, and Sam, bewilderingly, said, “Maybe he’s right.”

 

“What?!  I’m straight, Sam, always have been, always will be.”

 

Sam shrugged.  “Well, stranger things have happened.  To us, especially.”

 

“I mean it, Sam.  I like girls.  Girl porn.  Lots of girls.  All the girls.  Two, three girls at once.  Any of this ringing a bell?  I like the female of the species.”

 

“Yeah, well, Cas isn’t exactly a guy.  He’s not even human.”

 

“Even worse!  You don’t get it.  Cas is--he’s an angel of the lord, right?  He’s all about love.  He loves everyone.  Equally.”

 

“No, I’m pretty sure he loves you ... more.”

 

“Sam--”

 

“Just because it’s not how you’ve ever seen yourself doesn’t mean it’s not something worth considering.”

 

“Come on.  How does a guy even ... with another guy?”

 

“Oh, they do.  Trust me.  There’s all kinds of, uh ... ‘informational videos’ on the internet,” Sam informed him, smirking wickedly.

 

Dean shook his head.  Watching gay porn on the internet.  This was not something he had ever pictured for his future.  Then again, very little that had happened in his life was anything he’d ever pictured.  Sam was looking pensive.  “What?” Dean said shortly.

 

“Well ... I just have to say, I’ve never seen you this ... happy.  You’ve been with a lot of girls, but none of them ever lasted.  Maybe this was why.”

 

“Because I was waiting for the right guy to come along?” Dean asked sarcastically.

 

“Because you were waiting for Cas.  It seems like he touches a part of you no one ever has before.”

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

Dean was going to make a joke about how there was nowhere he’d never been touched before, or some thigh-slapper about getting ‘touched by an angel,’ but he managed to leave it alone, mainly because Sam’s saying that made him think.  He had to admit it was true that he felt different in Cas’s presence than he had ever felt with anyone else.  Better.  He could relax; he could be himself.  He could tell Cas stuff he couldn’t even tell Sam.

 

Dean gave up sleeping on the couch and went back to their nice, comfy bed.  Jeez, if Cas really made him uncomfortable, he could just ask him to stop whatever he was doing.  Anyway, Cas wouldn’t do anything like that. 

 

Until he did.

 

They’d just turned off the light to go to sleep and Dean had settled down on his back, closing his eyes, when he felt Cas’s hand on his upper abdomen.  Dean’s eyes opened.  Oh, boy.  He waited, hoping Cas didn’t know where his hand was or it was just a weird angel thing and he would stop, but then his hand brushed higher, toward his heart.  “Cas?” he said.  His voice sounded loud in the dark.

 

“Yes?”  Cas’s voice sounded equally loud.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“I’m ... I’m trying to find ... where I gripped you.”

 

Dean covered his face with his hand.  This would have been weird anytime, but in the dark, just the two of them, it felt almost frightening--not because angels were so powerful they could smite you with a touch, but ... it took him a minute to put a finger on it: because it was frighteningly intimate.  As Cas’s hand brushed across his nipple, Dean caught it firmly.  “No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“You never ‘gripped me,’ Cas.  I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

 

“I did.”

 

“You’ve hugged me a few times; that’s it.”

 

Cas sounded wounded.  “You don’t remember?”

 

“Remember what?”

 

“You don’t remember ... me?”  He was silent for a long second.  Dean could feel waves of strong, incomprehensible emotion pulsing out of him.  “I remember everything.  Everything.  You’re the one who changed me into ... whatever it is I’ve become.  I must have left a handprint on you; my touch would have seared you there.  I’m sorry about that.”

 

Dean went cold.  He could hardly breathe for a few seconds.  At last, he said, scarcely above a whisper, “That was you?”

 

“You don’t remember me?” Cas said again.

 

Dean tried to think what he remembered, but this was all stuff he’d tried so hard to forget.  “I’m sorry,” he croaked.

 

Cas’s hand found the welt he’d left on Dean as surely as a magnet, and fitted his hand perfectly over the spot.  Dean shuddered, then suddenly sat up, throwing Cas’s hand off it, because he remembered.  He remembered so much at once he thought he might pass out.  He staggered out of bed, holding his head.  “Oh, my God.  It was you.  You ... you raised me.  I remember.”  He gathered his wits about him sufficiently to demand to know why he hadn’t mentioned it, in all the time they’d been friends.

 

“I thought you knew.  I knew the moment we first touched. It was why I gravitated toward our workplace.  I thought it was why you protected me the day we met again, why you befriended me, why you came to my aid at the side of the road, why I’m here now.  Why else ...?”

 

“That’s just the kind of thing you do for people!” Dean snapped.

 

“Simple kindness,” Cas said, as if in awe of the concept.  Dean supposed Cas probably hadn’t encountered much kindness since he’d been stuck on Earth.  “So human.  So unhuman.”  Cas was silent for a long moment, contemplating.  “Is it that you ... wished to forget me?”

 

“No,” Dean said, still reeling.  “No.  I thought I would always remember.  I mean, it only lasted a second, but for that second, it was like there had never been anything else.  It’s like you said; I knew ... everything, everything you ever felt or thought or experienced.”  He groaned and held his head, which could not seem to comprehend the eternity he saw then, as if his flesh could not contain what his soul had taken in stride.  He had been remade in that moment, soul as well as body, which came with an explosion of relief, for he’d thought he was entirely lost.  In that eternal instant, Cas had carefully, deliberately put him together, cell by cell.  He turned his haunted eyes to Cas in the darkness.  “You.  You made me.”

 

“I repaired you.”

 

“How can you say that?!  It’s a good imitation, but I’m not the same as I was, when the hellhounds took me.  I watched you put me back together, but you were starting from nothing!  There wasn’t a ‘me’ left to repair!  You created me.”

 

“Only my father has the power to create.  I merely ... patched you up, even if, as you say, there was little left of the original to work with.”

 

“Oh, my God!” Dean said, having a sudden, horrible realization.  “You saved me, and I paid you back by destroying you.”

 

Cas turned compassionate eyes up to him, full of confusion.  “I ... I don’t understand your remorse, when you accomplished the precious miracle that saved humankind.”

 

“Because!  Because, the guy who made me is ... I mean, I thought you were indestructible.  I didn’t know I could hurt you.  I thought you _were_ God.  You were everything.  And now I’m just going to have to watch you fade away?!”

 

“Would you have made another choice?”

 

“If I could, Cas ....  If I could, I would do anything to save you.  I mean, why did you even bother to save me?!  You’d have been so much better off if you hadn’t.”

 

“Oh, Dean.  How can you think so little of yourself?  I saved you because you deserved saving.”

 

“Was that your order, because I was supposed to be Michael’s vessel?”

 

“No.  Creation cried out against the injustice of a righteous man in hell.  I answered its cry.”

 

“Yeah?  Why you?  Are you like the top angel or something?”

 

“I served under Anna; I was ... what you call a military grunt.”

 

“So why?  Why’d it have to be you?” Dean whispered.

 

Cas thought for a few seconds.  “I’m more expendable than most,” he said at last, not a hint of self-pity.

 

“You saved me because you’re expendable?!” Dean demanded, aghast.

 

“I saved you because you are not.”

 

Dean sank down onto the bed.  An angel of the lord, telling him he wasn’t expendable.  Dean had imagined what he would say to God or his representative, if he ever got the chance.  He had imagined what would be said back to him, too.  That was never, never it.

 

Cas comforted him when they went to sleep, delicately avoiding the welt, Dean assumed, because he’d seen how much it upset him for him to touch it.  Cas held him gently, much as he’d done when he raised him, and Dean clung to him in return, undone.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

“We have to find a solution,” Dean told Sam, for the fiftieth time.  Every time they talked about it, neither of them had been able to come up with a single decent idea.  He’d filled him in about how Cas was the one who raised him out of hell, though he didn’t go into the particulars.

 

“I know, but there just isn’t any information.  It’s never happened before.”

 

“Then we reopen the gate,” Dean said flatly.  Somehow he hadn’t expected Sam’s reaction of shock.  “What?  I’m the only one who’s really in danger if we open it, since Michael will be returning for ‘his vessel’ so they can start the apocalypse again.  Doesn’t matter.  I’d still have to consent, and I’m not gonna.”

 

“Wh--and what, you think the apocalypse starting again isn’t kind of a big problem?!”  Sam was usually pretty good at keeping calm no matter what.  Dean must really have thrown him with this idea. 

 

“We closed it once, we can close it again.  We only have to keep it open long enough for Cas to get in, anyway.”

 

“Cas said they’ll probably kill him!”

 

“Okay,” said Dean, annoyed, “so we open it a crack, just enough for Cas to get some of heaven’s power back in him.  Whatever.”

 

“Wh--because it’s that easy?!” Sam spluttered.  “Are you listening to yourself?”

 

“Closing that gate was a mistake.  We open it, I say no, end of story.”

 

“They’ll do anything to make you say yes, Dean--anything.  You know that.  They’ll kill all our friends.  They’ll kill me.  They’ll kill Cas.”

 

Dean turned away, face creasing, and slammed his fist on the table.  “Then what?!  What do we do, Sam?  I can’t stand around and watch the guy who put me together die!”

 

“He would have died anyway, Dean.”

 

“Yeah, but it wouldn’t have been my fault!”  His hysterical words seemed to hang in the air and echo, so Dean turned and stomped out of the room to interrupt the neverending ripples of the rock he’d thrown in that unsolvable lake.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

Cas often held him as he slept now, and nothing about it seemed weird to Dean anymore.  When Cas first laid that hand on his shoulder in hell, Dean had only been shreds of a soul.  When someone not only intimately knows but himself made virtually everything you are, shame would be ridiculous.  Anyway, now, when they touched, Dean felt the angel he knew then, that vast spirit, not some guy in a trenchcoat.  Still ... Cas was telling the truth when he said he wasn’t the same as he was then, and it wasn’t just being stuck here on earth.  He was foreign and cool and incomprehensible when he first felt that hand on him, and now, he was simply more ... human.  More feeling.  More fragile.  More ... like Dean.  That was why Sam said Cas reminded him of Dean, Dean knew it. 

 

Nevertheless, it surprised Dean when Cas kissed him again.  He’d been stroking his body already, but that had come to seem normal, and Dean was mostly asleep when he felt those lips on his.  He opened his eyes, to find Cas staring at him from inches away.  “What?” Dean said in response to the question that seemed to be in those eyes.  Cas moved closer to him, then simply kissed him again, as if that was the question.  “What’s going on?  Why are you doing that?”  A feather touched Dean’s forehead, then drifted down to the pillow beside his head, and his forehead creased.  “Oh, God, Cas,” he whispered. 

 

The next time Cas kissed him, he kissed him back, experimentally.  It was like Sam had said; Cas really wasn’t male or female, but that wasn’t why he didn’t resist anymore; it was because he had nothing to hide from him, and nothing to fear. 

 

Dean was surprised to experience a rush of feeling very much like when Cas had remade him.  It took him back to that eternal place where there was nothing to dread and all was perfect as it was and they had all the time in the world.  Returning to that place felt ... necessary, as if something had been left undone when he was remade and he had to finish the job, only the job now seemed to be Dean’s.  Too bad he had no idea how to do it. 

 

He stroked his hand through Cas’s hair, finding feathers there.  He combed them out and cast them away.  “Cas, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, tears filling his eyes.  “I would do anything.”  Cas only kissed him again, and it felt just as good and right again, so Dean went with it, until he found himself clutching Cas against him as tight as he could.  If they could become one like they did in that eternal moment, maybe he could find a way to heal him ... but no, they were just two people here, in the real world, two separate bodies, and neither of them had any power.  Still, he kissed Cas’s face tenderly, that beloved face, which all too soon might be gone forever.

 

Dean was surprised when Cas took it farther, touching him everywhere.  Cas himself seemed surprised, bewildered even, seeming to act purely on instinct.  It was late and Dean was tired, and he loved Cas, and it felt so right and good, he couldn’t think of one decent reason not to go wherever Cas wanted to take them.  Cas seemed to be fumbling to remove Dean’s clothes, so Dean helped him, and Cas followed suit.  “I love you, Dean,” Cas said, returning to the embrace.

 

“Love you too, Cas,” Dean said, his lips in Cas’s hair, repeatedly having to wipe tears and feathers off his own face.

 

“Don’t cry,” Cas whispered, pressing their cheeks together.  “I’m happy.”

 

“Me too,” said Dean, surprised to realize it.  Actually, he felt better and happier than he’d felt in ... maybe forever.  Certainly since hell.

 

Cas pulled back a bit, and contemplated Dean uncertainly.  “May I ...?” he began.  “I’d like to ....”

 

“Whatever you want.  Just ... do you know what you’re doing?”  Dean got the lube out of his bedside table and handed it to Cas.  “Don’t skimp.”

 

Cas only smiled and nodded, and made love to Dean, which was awesome and hot and weird, not just because he’d never done it with a guy, but because he was doing it with Cas, who always managed to weird things up a little.  Not to mention that he was sad and happy, and it was quiet rather than raucous and festive like it was with all the girls he’d known, and so intimate he felt like they were breathing the same air, thinking the same thoughts.  The pleasure that suffused him far outstripped any sex he’d ever had before.  It wasn’t just physical, though; it went way beyond only that.  It was like Cas glowed like a sun and Dean basked in its light.  Dean didn’t realize he was being so noisy until Cas chuckled with delight.  “I never imagined, when I was still an angel, that one day I’d be doing this. ... Though I liked the idea.  Of everything human, this is the most human of it all.”

 

“Shh!” Dean said, distracted right when he didn’t want to be.  It didn’t help; he came right then, Cas close behind, getting noisy himself, and Dean was struck by how cool it was that he was there the first time Cas experienced this feeling.  Afterward was all cuddles and giggles, as Cas went over in detail every thought and emotion that went with every sensation he’d just experienced and Dean listened, a huge smile plastered on his face, happy for every word that came out of his mouth while he still had them. 

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

Dean wondered if he’d ever start feeling weird about ... whatever it was he and Cas were doing.  Dating, he guessed.  If they still worked together, people would probably comment and Dean would probably have had to punch a few of them, but there was no one but Sam and Virginia, who were just happy they were happy.  As for Dean himself, he couldn’t feel bad or even strange about any of it; it seemed like the most obvious, necessary thing in the world.  He thought about what his self of a year ago would say if he could see him now, and smiled.  Well, whatever.  Things change.  People change.  Everything changes.

 

They made love all the time now.  If he could come up with any reason why he shouldn’t, he still couldn’t have resisted; it felt more awesome than anything he’d ever felt in his whole life.  He didn’t need booze or sex with anyone else or even hamburgers when he had Cas.  “You should definitely try having sex with an angel sometime,” he gushed to Sam, who looked confused by the statement.  “It’s so awesome.  You wouldn’t think ... I mean, since they’re junkless in their natural state, you wouldn’t think they could be good at it, but oh, God, he’s so good.”

 

“Um, tmi much?” said Sam, disbelieving.  “Anyway, since I’ve found the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with, I’m not really looking for angels to do.”

 

Dean found his mood more unsinkable all the time; Sam’s complaints didn’t faze him.  “Your loss.  I feel sorry for anyone who’s never gotten no good angel-lovin’.”

 

“Again, Dean, didn’t need to know.”

 

“All right, but you don’t know what you’re missin’.”

 

“And hopefully I never will,” Sam muttered as he left, shaking his head.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

Things seemed better all the time.  Cas even got better enough to come back to work.  Virginia seemed like the perfect girl for Sam.  Dean liked hanging out with her; she was quick and snarky and had an evil sense of humor.  She and Dean liked to rib each other, and sometimes they had fun ganging up on Sam, but she never took that too far, so it was okay.  Sam was finally about to have the normal life he’d always wanted.  Dean had never been happier in his life. 

 

Eventually, he even noticed he wasn’t seeing feathers anymore!  He brought this up with Cas, grinning huge, and didn’t get why Cas’s smile seemed so reserved and wistful.  “What, man?  This is good news!  You’re allowed to be happy about it.”

 

Cas smiled that same sad smile, and finally said, “I think perhaps ... it may simply be that I’m fully ... human now.”  He was going to say “fallen,” but because he didn’t want to hurt Dean’s feelings, he said “human” instead; Dean knew him well enough by now to be able to tell.  “I feel very human,” Cas went on, trying to sound upbeat.  “Don’t I seem very human these days?”

 

Dean’s face fell.  “Yeah.  Yeah, you do,” he said, putting his hand around his waist, even though it was a lie.

 

Well, the one good thing about that was that Cas didn’t seem any closer to death than before, so if he really was finally all fallen, maybe ... maybe he would really be okay.

 

Dean had managed to put it out of his mind by the next night.  They both had work the next day, but Dean tried to always make sure they got to bed early enough that they’d have time for the fun stuff and Cas would still get a good night’s sleep.  Dean was so horny, but he always let Cas decide whether there would be any after-hours activities, because somehow it was never as good when Dean made the first move.  Angel sex ... it was awesome, but it did have its particularities.  He was really hoping Cas would be up for something tonight, though.

 

Dean had to make eyes at him for like twenty minutes before Cas finally caught his drift.  “Oh,” Cas said, smiling.  “Please.”

 

That was all the invitation Dean needed.  Cas was always on top, which surprised Dean, but it didn’t matter and it didn’t bear thinking about; whatever.  Dean liked it any which way.  Cas wasn’t getting things started, though, so Dean flung back the covers and straddled Cas.  He put his hands on either side of Cas so he could bend down to kiss him ... and his hand landed directly in a huge mound of feathers.

 

Dean’s heart stopped.  He closed his fist around them, unable to believe it, and Cas flinched under him.  It was undeniably feathers, more in one place than he’d ever encountered, a thick, fleshy mound like a duck after a fox was finished with it.  Dean met his eyes in the darkness, and Cas’s looked as huge and round as he knew his must be.  “No,” said Dean softly.  “No, no, no.  Cas!”

 

Dean put his other hand beside the first, trying to get an idea of how many there were, but there was no end to them; they seemed to go on forever.  Cas seemed to be writhing in some sort of agony, as if Dean’s simply touching the fallen feathers somehow drove home to him, too, what it must all mean.  Dean finally stopped tormenting himself, feeling them, put his head in his hands, and wept bitterly.  He heard Cas softly saying his name, intending to comfort him, but he wouldn’t let him.  When Cas reached for his wrist, he yanked it away and moved to sit on the foot of the bed, where at least there were no feathers. 

 

He knew it would come to this someday.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t had any warning, and still, he’d been too much of a pussy to go and try to get Cas to the gate and open it, at least a crack.  He’d have to trick him to do it, he knew--Cas would never let him endanger himself that way.  Still, tricking Cas wasn’t hard, and it would have been worth it; he’d always forgive him.  Sam wouldn’t have helped him--no hunter would have--but he should have kept at it until he found a way; he couldn’t get off his ass and do that much?  For Cas?  He guessed he’d just sat around hoping vainly that everything would be okay, but when had it ever just been okay?  As soon as he realized he was so happy, he should have known he was screwed.  This time, because he was such a fuckup, he’d managed to screw Cas, too--Cas, who would never dole out back on him whatever he deserved.  It was intolerable.

 

At least Cas was still alive, but if there were that many feathers falling out all at once, the end had to be near; what he’d felt just now beside him on the bed was at least twice as many as had been in the backseat of the Impala, and he knew he hadn’t come close to finding the end of them.  Indeed, Cas was eerily silent and still, arms at his sides, unmoving, peering anxiously at the bed beside him where Dean had made that terrible discovery.

 

Dean gave himself a few more seconds to wallow in self-pity before wiping his face, getting up, and getting them some clothes.  “Okay,” he said emptily.  “It’s time.  I’m taking you back to the gate.  I’m gonna find a way to open it up, at least a little, so you can get some juice from heaven.  Put on some clothes.”  He tossed jeans and a t-shirt on the bed beside Cas, and his trenchcoat on top of them.

 

“Dean.”

 

“I’m not gonna hear one word about it.  Either we’re going together or I’m going alone.  Which is it?”

 

“Dean, why are you so tormented?  What happened, to make you ...?”

 

“There’s a mountain of feathers beside you on the bed.  Piles.  Piles and piles of them, Cas,” he said, and his voice broke near the end of the sentence.  He took a few seconds to breathe so he could try to sound normal again.  He failed.  “We knew ... we knew all along that you weren’t doing so well, and it seems like this is our last chance to ....”

 

“I feel no different from usual.”

 

“It doesn’t MATTER!”  Dean flung down his own pants, turning on Cas.  “We ALWAYS knew this was going to happen, and I’m not going to just sit here and let it!  Not anymore.  What if--what if it had been too late and this was it?  If we’re ever going to do something about this, it has to be now, while you’re still okay and able to walk around.”

 

“I’ll never let you open the gate.”

 

“Well, I’m not asking for your permission.”

 

“I can stop you.”

 

“No, you can’t.  You’re no stronger than me, anymore.  Way less than me now, actually.”

 

“Dean, sometimes we simply have to accept--”

 

“No.”

 

“But there’s--”

 

“Nope.  You coming with me or not?”

 

“I’m not letting you go.”  Cas rose from the bed and went to stand before the bedroom door, staring at him with the fiery determination of ... well, an angel.  He looked like an angel, and not just because of his expression; there was something else, a luminosity, a shape ....

 

Dean staggered back.  “Oh, my God!”

 

“What?” Cas asked coolly.

 

“Cas, I--I can see your wings!”

 

Cas quirked his head slightly.  A hint of a smile played around his mouth.  As if in response to what Dean had said, his wings rose higher.  The one reached nearly to the far wall, and the other pierced the near wall as if it wasn’t even there.  Dean took a step toward him, and another, unable to resist, until he put his hand on one of them.  He expected it to be like a rainbow, ever elusive, but then his hand sank into a sea of feathers.  It was his wings he’d felt.  His wings.

 

He stroked them in awe and disbelief, until he realized Cas was groaning and getting weak on his feet.  Dean caught him.  “Cas, are you okay?” he asked anxiously.

 

Cas clung to him, and it was just like it had been when he’d been so weak he could hardly stand, and Dean was ready again to head for the gate, but his wings, they were so full of feathers, so healthy-looking, so visible.  Cas seemed confused himself.  “Yes, but I ... when you touch my wings, it feels ... nothing has ever touched my wings before.  You--you have the power to.”

 

“Nothing?  Not even you?”

 

“Angels don’t preen,” Cas said sternly.  “We were made without vanity.  Wings are for flight, nothing more.”

 

“But they’re so beautiful,” Dean breathed in awe.  He’d never seen angel wings before.  It changed something inside him all in an instant, that hatred he’d always harbored for angels even when Cas told him about good angels he’d known and loved who weren’t dicks at all.  They really were divine beings, he realized, capable of great power and great goodness, even if a few of them had gone astray in the absence of the one who made them.  His Cas was a divine being.  Dean put his arms around Cas’s neck and held him tight, more tears coming into his eyes, but it was way more than guilt this time.  He was simply overwhelmed with a dozen emotions he couldn’t even keep track of right now.  “Are you really okay?” he asked thickly.  “Because if you need anything--anything--I’ll go and get it for you, right now, no questions asked, all right?  I’m ready; you just say the word.”

 

“Dean,” Cas said gently, “you can’t really be thinking of going and opening the gate.  Michael could force you to say yes in seconds.  He knows your weaknesses.”

 

“I don’t care.  I just want you to be okay.”

 

“I think ... I am okay.  You felt feathers on my wings?”

 

“Yeah.  They’re covered with feathers.  In fact,” he said, burying his hand in one of them before quickly removing it when Cas began sinking to his knees again, “it’s almost like that’s all they are, just feathers.”

 

“Perhaps they are.”

 

Dean was concerned about this weakness.  He must be some kind of Kryptonite to Cas’s wings.  “I’m sorry, man,” he said, helping Cas back to the bed.  “I won’t touch them again.  It hurts you, doesn’t it?”  Dean felt the stab to his heart this realization gave him.  It hurt Cas for him to touch the holiest part of him.  He’d have to be so careful never to touch his wings.  He looked down, feeling wrung out.  Cas was okay, that was all that mattered ... even if suddenly they had realized it would probably be better for him not to be anywhere close to Dean.  If his wings were now so present and touchable, could they even sleep together?  Dean should go back to sleeping on the couch.  His mind gave him a lightning-quick list of all the things they wouldn’t be able to do anymore: sleep together, hug, make love, even sit close together side by side.

 

“No ... it doesn’t hurt,” Cas said diffidently. 

 

Dean looked at him sharply.  “What, then?”

 

“I’m ... not entirely sure, but it isn’t pain.”

 

“Are you being straight with me?” Dean insisted.  “Because if it hurts you, I’ll ... you know, go away or whatever it takes.”

 

Cas gazed at him evenly.  “Even if it did hurt me, it would change nothing between us.”

 

“What are you talking about?  Of course it would.  We’re going to do whatever you need.”

 

“To be away from you would be a greater agony.”

 

Cas rolled onto his side, facing Dean, and pulled up the covers.  Dean could see his wings swept back behind him, away from Dean, almost like butterfly wings when they’re upright and parallel.  Dean hesitantly got under the covers, too.  Cas smiled at him in the darkness and took his hands, and Dean felt the frown he’d been wearing all this time ease.  Cas was okay.  He was really somehow okay.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

Dean woke on his back in the early morning to two things happening simultaneously: something soft brushing against his face, and quiet little gasps coming from Cas.  When this registered in his brain, he looked over at Cas anxiously, still afraid the other shoe was about to drop.  He was relieved by what he saw: that definitely wasn’t pain.  Dean snickered softly to himself and relaxed, fixing to go back to sleep.  He was kind of irritated that Cas was getting off in his dreams instead of with Dean, but whatever; he was just so happy to see Cas happy and feeling good.  Then that thing was touching his face again ... in time with Cas’s gasps.  Dean couldn’t see anything there in the growing morning light.  He lifted his hand to try to figure out what could be going on ... and felt the underside of a wing fluttering oh so gently right above him.  He stifled a laugh.  This could be fun, Cas having wings. 

 

Dean rolled away from Cas onto his stomach and pulled the covers over his head so his wings tapping him wouldn’t keep him up, but when it helped not a whit, he remembered how Cas’s wings went right through walls.  It only stood to reason they would go through sheets, too.  Dean lifted his hand so he could close his fingers around a couple of the feathers that dipped between them, figuring he could hold on to Cas’s wing and keep it still while he had his fun and Dean could still get some more sleep before their alarm went off.  Cas had had that strong reaction to having his wings grabbed last night, but he probably wouldn’t even feel it if Dean caught a few feathers between his fingers ... or so Dean thought.  He realized he was wrong as Cas gasped loudly and ripped his wing out of Dean’s grip.  Dean heard objects on the bedside table behind Cas hit the floor.  Cas sat up abruptly.  Dean sat up quickly, too.  “Cas?  You all right?”

 

Cas looked around, still breathing heavily, plainly disoriented and confused.  He looked at Dean with dark, slightly wild eyes.

 

“Cas?”

 

Cas shoved him down onto his stomach again.  Dean truly had no idea what was going on--angels sometimes did really weird things that made perfect sense to them and no one else--until he heard Cas summarily grab the lube and open the bottle.  Okay, and good morning to you, too, Cas! 

 

Dean groaned happily.  It wasn’t like he could have gotten off after the terrifying revelations of the previous evening, but the horniness he’d felt beforehand had only percolated after being stymied last night, coming back with a vengeance this morning, made worse by Cas’s happy noises in his sleep.  They wouldn’t have much time before they had to get up for work, but at this point, anything was good.

 

Dean groaned louder when Cas wasted no time on foreplay and got right down to business, making noises at least as happy as when he was sleeping.  This was a new Cas, not the least hesitant, not saying a word, not even asking, just having his way with Dean.  Dean smiled, remembering times with girls that had been like that.  It was the hottest, no courtesy, no pretense, just raw, primal need.  Dean had never been too good at social niceties, anyway; it was great to get to throw them all out the window. 

 

Already it was about as hot as it ever got, and then Dean felt shuddering wings slowly descend over his shoulders and gradually press up along the length of the whole front of his body, and he turned to jelly.  Cas was quaking, too, making frantic noises.  Neither of them lasted long.  Afterward, Cas’s wings continued to gently stroke him, which was great at first, and gradually became a form of torture.  “Cas, could ya ....”  He tried to elbow the offending wing out of the way, but Cas seemed beyond comprehension.  Finally, Dean covered himself with his hand, since nothing else--not beds nor walls nor anything else--had the power to stand between him and Cas’s wings. 

 

Cas’s wing brushed against him more insistently, and then he felt Cas’s hands descending down his body searchingly.  Cas tried to take his hand away.  “Jeez, Cas, are you trying to kill me?  Give me a few minutes.”

 

Cas subsided, cuddled quivering against his back.  Cas was ready for seconds already?  It wasn’t like the sex hadn’t always been good, but Cas wasn’t a human being and he’d never exactly seemed to get sex, which was why he often didn’t think of it himself.  When they got it on, Cas acted purely on instinct and seemed surprised at himself afterward, sometimes blaming all his desire on his vessel, though Dean knew that wasn’t all.  Still, sexual desire came unexpectedly for Cas, and disappeared just as quickly when it was spent.  Dean thought back, trying to remember if they’d ever done it twice in a row, and couldn’t remember a time.  Actually, everything about this time was new: the quivering, the determination, the wordlessness ....  What was even going on?

 

Dean estimated that exactly three minutes passed before Cas was there again, trying to pull his hand away.  He remembered the discussion they’d had at the breakfast table one morning with Sam and Virginia, as they taught Cas the difference between “a couple,” “a few,” “several,” and “many.”  Cas was precise by nature and had struggled with these vague human terms.  They’d defined “a few” for him as “three or four,” so, three minutes it was.  “Three more minutes,” Dean insisted gruffly.  He heard an uncommon quality in Cas’s noisy breathing as he waited, unmoving--was that impatience?  Dean chuckled.  “What’s gotten into you?”

 

Cas didn’t respond ... although his wing once more descended and stroked tantalizingly along Dean’s legs.  “You’re shameless, Cas, you know that?”

 

Cas grunted sensually, and Dean heard the smile in his voice.  Dean was about to say more when the wing got him in a ticklish spot, and he twitched, brushing the wing away.  The wing came at him again powerfully, pressing him back abruptly against Cas.  Wow, dude had strong wings.  It was still tickling him, and Dean couldn’t help giggling as he tried unsuccessfully to get the wing away from the spot, writhing, and finally getting kind of mad.  “Cas, come on!  What’s the matter with you?”

 

“It’s been three minutes,” Cas announced then flatly. 

 

“All right, fine, but I’m pitching.”

 

Cas smiled as if he’d planned it this way from the beginning, and sank contentedly into the bedclothes.  “My wings are much more flexible when they’re behind me,” he declared happily.  “It’s hard to get them in front of me like that at all.”

 

“Yeah?  Well, your wings are not going to be a part of this,” Dean said, bodily shoving one out of the way as the repeated feathery contact started creating new ticklish spots ... but when he grabbed the wing, Cas jerked and groaned loudly.  “Yeah, see?  Keep ’em out of the way!  Lie them flat out to the side.”

 

It was only then that he realized he could still see the barest shadow of them in the bright light as Cas obediently, if reluctantly, lowered them until they were stretched out to either side.  “Good,” said Dean, shaking his head.  He’d never expected Cas to be so truculent.  “Seriously, what’s gotten into you?”

 

Cas smiled a lazy smile, and Dean knew exactly the joke he was thinking of making, but then Dean made it a reality, and all thoughts apparently left Cas’s mind.  Everything was going normal until Dean accidentally shoved his hand into one of Cas’s wings again as he was bracing himself and Cas jolted back into him, crying out, and then Dean knew what it was Cas was feeling when Dean touched his wings.  Experimentally, he stroked down the length of one wing as far as he could reach, and Cas writhed and moaned ecstatically the whole way down.  Oh, this was just too, too good.  “Consider this revenge,” he whispered to Cas as he fondled his wings mercilessly, and though Cas literally couldn’t control his body or the noises he made when Dean touched him this way, to his credit, he never begged him to stop.

 

Dean was having way too much fun to stop, even when he realized one of the objects that had hit the floor was the alarm clock and they were probably due at work some time ago, so it went on until Dean finally decided poor, sweaty, exhausted Cas had had enough.  He rolled onto his side--only after carefully lifting his wing out of the way to get under it--and stroked Cas’s hair, reveling in the expression of bliss on his face.  “You are too wonderful,” Dean murmured.

 

Cas seemed to have been robbed of the strength to speak, but his answering tired smile was all Dean needed.

 

They laid together like that, Cas’s breath slowly returning to normal, for a long, satisfying while, until Dean finally decided it was time to get moving; if he stayed there stroking Cas much longer, he might be too tempted to resist starting in on the poor guy again.  Dean reached for his cell phone.  It was about as bad as he expected: a little after nine.  They were an hour late, probably two hours by the time they got there. 

 

Cas saw the cell phone and the time displayed on the screen, and his eyes grew wide.  “I’m late for work!” he exclaimed, and disappeared.  Naked.  And pretty dirty.  Not in a good way.

 

Three seconds later, he popped back into the room, exclaiming, “I’m naked!”

 

“Did anyone see you?” Dean asked gruffly.  Disappearing and reappearing were hallmarks of an angel; their hunter coworkers might figure it out.

 

Cas shook his head, looking down at himself helplessly, as if unable to construct a plan of action.  Dean knew he could help.  “Well, we’re gonna be late, and that’s all there is to it.  And we have to shower.”  Cas started shaking his head anxiously, but Dean said, “Trust me, that is not how you want to go to work.  Sometimes this happens.”

 

“Sometimes ... what happens?” Cas said, and Dean couldn’t help cracking up as he got what Cas was asking: Sometimes your wings return, and they turn out to be giant erogenous zones, and the alarm clock gets knocked on the floor, and your boyfriend teases you for hours, and you appear at work naked?  Cas looked concerned at the idea that this simply ‘happened sometimes.’

 

“Sometimes, you can’t help being late.  Everyone will live.  Come on; let’s get in the shower.”

 

Dean was fascinated to see Cas’s wings present no trouble when going through the comparatively narrow doorway into the bathroom and shower.  When he gently touched them, the water from the showerhead ran down Dean’s hand unobstructed, unable to wet his wings, but Dean could feel and move the feathers without any trouble with his fingers.  “I’m really the only thing that can touch them?” Dean asked softly.  It took Cas a couple of seconds to figure out what he was talking about, and then seeing where he was looking, he got it.  He nodded.  “You can see them, right?  I mean, you seem to know where they are pretty well.”

 

“I can’t see them, but I can guess where they probably are, just as you would know generally where your limbs were, even in pitch darkness,” Cas answered.

 

Dean felt so awed as to feel humbled.  “Seriously?  I can see them and you can’t?”

 

Cas smiled faintly.  “I remain cut off from the power of heaven, whereas you ... I suppose, when I put you back together, before there was enough of you to even know itself, all you knew was ... me.”  Dean looked down, overcome.  That was exactly how it had been.  When he came to himself again, it was with shock, and even a certain crushing disappointment, to realize he was a separate being from the angel who had become his whole world. 

 

Now the situation had become kind of reversed, as Dean was able to be aware of Cas in some ways better than Cas could be aware of himself.  Dean was even more humbled to realize this.  “You can touch your own wings, though, right?”  Cas reached back, and Dean was astonished to see it was true: he really didn’t quite know where his own wings were.  Dean took his hand and moved it to where his wing arched proudly behind him, and watched with disbelief as Cas’s own hand passed through it.  Cas was frowning with concentration, and said, “I can sense them, but not touch them as you can.”

 

“But how can that be?”

 

“I knocked the alarm clock to the floor with my wings.  I’m sorry,” he said confessionally, looking anxiously at Dean, reassured by Dean’s entertained smirk, remembering the surrounding events.  “Enough focus, or feeling, can cause them to interact with physical objects, and when it comes to you ... there is a great deal of feeling indeed, and always will be.  We’re forever connected.”

 

Dean couldn’t help feeling a little cocky at that statement, and washed Cas’s hair energetically--he always missed spots when he did it himself.  Cas submitted to this with a docile pleasure, moving gradually closer to Dean until his head was pressed under Dean’s chin.  Dean felt Cas’s arms come around him, and had to stop washing for a minute just to hug him back, full of the joy of knowing Cas was going to be all right.

 

After they were both clean, Cas hunkered down to rummage in the dresser’s bottom drawer for something to wear.  The morning sunlight was no longer shining into the room.  In the shade of late morning, Dean realized he could see Cas’s wings better than he’d been able to in the bright light or in the darkness.  He sat down on the edge of the bed to simply watch Cas as his wings told a whole story: rising slightly, flight feathers slowly fanning out, when he found something interesting, subsiding again as he dismissed that item of clothing as potential attire for the day, one wing quirking out quickly at one point to help him keep his balance, while the rest of his body stayed in its original position, betraying no sign he’d been off-balance at all.  So many of the mysteries of Cas’s stillness and silence revealed all at once.  For the first time, Dean was able to know that Cas really wasn’t still or silent at all: his wings were continually moving, expressing his thoughts and feelings, and now Dean could read them in all their open unself-consciousness, since even Cas didn’t know what they were doing.  They--the most uniquely Cas part of him--were a secret held only by Dean.  He would guard it like the priceless treasure it was.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

 

“I’m pretty sure I’m evil,” Dean sighed as he sat down with Sam in the livingroom.  Cas had winked over to his garden for the afternoon, and Virginia was at the store. 

 

“Me, too,” teased Sam.  “Why now?”

 

“Well, the night before, I’d been convinced he was at death’s door and that touching his wings tortured him, and the next morning, I wouldn’t let up on the guy, and I was enjoying every second of it.”  He hadn’t been able to resist telling Sam about how Cas reacted when he fondled his wings in agonizing detail at the first opportunity, despite Sam’s insistent protests.

 

“To be fair, I don’t think there’s a lot of people who could resist that.”

 

“My point is, I don’t have my priorities straight.  What’s wrong with me, everything leaving my brain except sex with Cas when ... when there’s so many more important things to think about when it comes to him.”

 

“Like what?” came Cas’s voice from the next room.  He walked in, covered in dirt up to his elbows.

 

“Let’s get you in the shower,” Dean said, standing abruptly, the sight of him in the middle of his confession uncorking all that guilt.

 

Cas took a step back.  “Like what, Dean?”

 

“Like ... oh, I dunno, like why was I getting it on with you all happily when I should have been thinking of a way to make you better?”

 

“I am better.”

 

“Yeah, but still ....”

 

“That’s how.”

 

“What?  How what?”

 

“You.  It was you who ... made me better.”

 

A smile quirked Sam’s lips.  “Sex with Dean brought you back from the brink of death?  Why do I feel like I’m reading a letter to Penthouse?”

 

“Sex ... and everything else,” said Cas, with a warm, knowing smile.  “Love.  God is love.  Angels are the will of God made manifest.  Love ... healed me.  You saved me.”

 

Dean felt a smile dawning on his face, and a weight lifting from his heart--a years-old weight.  A life-long weight.  He’d finally done something right.  All he’d had to do was be himself.  He grinned back at Cas. 

 

“You saved me first.”

 

 

~ The End ~

**Author's Note:**

> \- This story now has a sequel, called "Human." You can find it on my list of works, or at this URL: http://archiveofourown.org/works/690611


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